


When Your Soul Embarks

by orphan_account



Category: One Direction (Band)
Genre: BUT GOOD, I'm warning you, M/M, SO, i'm sorry i'm sorry, this is sad
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-12-09
Updated: 2014-12-09
Packaged: 2018-02-28 20:36:47
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,231
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2746160
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Harry Styles does not know much about cars. He knows nothing about the car that kills him besides the color of the shining metal beneath rain drenched street lights. The car is blue, he marvels. It’s blue. Like the sky, like the sea, like Louis Tomlinson’s eyes. </p><p>or </p><p>the one where Harry dies and promises to wait for Louis for the rest of his life.</p>
            </blockquote>





	When Your Soul Embarks

Harry Styles does not know much about cars. He knows nothing about the car that kills him besides the color of the shining metal beneath rain drenched street lights. The car is blue, he marvels. It’s blue. Like the sky, like the sea, like Louis Tomlinson’s eyes. 

Blue like sadness, blue like death. 

The driver of the blue car never even stops. The driver of the blue car is driving home drunk and it’s just not fair, the way Harry couldn’t, Harry would never, but someone does and it costs Harry his life. One moment he is walking home in the rain and the next moment he is gone, gone, gone. It’s just not fair, the way he dies in the mud on a Friday night. 

Blue like teardrops, blue like ice.

He is on his way home, long legs cold in the rain, and the next moment he looks down at himself and he knows he’s nothing but a ghost. The blue car never even stops. Harry watches the red, red taillights vanish down the street and he wants to call them back, to make them look at him, look at his fucking broken body in the street, but he can’t. It’s just not fair, the way he stands there all alone. 

Blue like summer, blue like home.

Harry does not know much but he knows he has to get home. Louis, his Louis, waits for him at home, and Harry wants to be the first to tell him that he’s gone, gone, gone. He does not want a stern police officer to break the news and he does not want to watch a stranger make Louis cry. It’s just not fair, the rain no longer icy on Harry’s skin, and he looks away from the street and he looks towards home. The one, the only, the love of his life waits for him, and he has somewhere better to be than in the middle of the street with nothing but his broken bones for company. 

Harry is at home and he can’t quite get a grip on the doorknob. It’s not as if the metal is slick from the rain; the stoop of the home Louis and Harry share is covered with an awning in lovely red.

Red like fire, red like blood.

Harry is at home but it’s just not fair; he can’t get a grip on the doorknob and when he catches a glimpse of Louis waiting for him in the living room he wants to open his mouth and scream. He does not know much but he has the feeling all the screaming in the world would not make Louis hear him. Louis is beautiful, Louis is perfection, and he checks his watch because Harry is late, Harry is ten minutes late now, and it’s not like Harry at all to be late.

Harry is at home and Louis worries about him. He frets with the frayed edges of the jumper he wears, his fingers blurred just the tiniest hint of a tremor, and Harry watches him because he can’t speak to him and he can’t touch him. Louis glances at his watch again, once, twice, three times, and Harry presses his hands to the door but he can’t quite touch it right. He can’t open it and he can’t reach Louis and all at once he wants to cry.

Louis waits and Harry is sorry, sorry, sorry. He is sorry he walked home and he is sorry he will never, ever make it home. He is sorry because he sees the way Louis worries when he is half an hour late, forty-five minutes, an hour. And at eight o’clock, when Harry was due home an hour ago, Louis picks up his phone and Louis calls him. 

Harry’s phone is lying in the pocket of his jeans back in the middle of the street. And he hears sirens in the distance, wailing in the rain, and he wonders if they are for him. For just a moment Louis’s chin jerks up, panic crossing his face, and Harry wants to hold him and kiss him and tell him he’s sorry, sorry, sorry, that the sirens break the silence of the icy night. Harry sees the prayer on Louis’s face, his features crying out a desperate plea of, “No, God, no, please. Not him, not him.” 

It’s just not fair that Harry cannot go to him. 

And Louis dashes to the window and he peers out into the night, his perfect face inches from where Harry stands untouched by the rain, and he cannot see Harry at all. What he does see is the light of the ambulance heading Harry’s way. And he panics, he panics, and he shoves away from the window and Harry watches him shove his bare feet into his shoes. Harry wants to move out of the way before Louis barrels through the front door, his sneakers slapping the wet pavement, but he does not have time. He doesn’t have time but it does not matter anyway; Louis dashes straight through him. 

It’s just not fair that Harry can chase him, Harry can follow him, but never again can he touch him. And Louis races down the street and the ambulance beats him there, of course it does, and Harry watches the way Louis’s chest heaves as a paramedic stops him in his tracks. 

“It’s my boyfriend!” Louis howls, and Harry bends. “It’s my fucking boyfriend, let me see him!” 

And Harry breaks. 

Louis shouts his name against the rain but all the screaming in the world cannot start Harry Styles’s heart back up again. Harry is gone, gone, gone. And Louis is crying, crying, crying, and Harry reaches for him, reaches for his hair, and it isn’t fucking fair that his hand passes straight through Louis as if he is made up of air. 

Harry is sorry. But he is immobile, ignoring a sharp pain in his head that tells him, begs him to go on, because he is not going anywhere. He will wait. He will wait. He can wait for his love, for his Louis, and nothing in this world or the next will make him say goodbye. He will not, cannot leave his Louis, his love, his heart. He won’t. He won’t. 

And it isn’t fucking fair that he can’t tell Louis so. 

***

Harry Styles does not know much about love but he knows that Louis loves him. They had built a life together, a tiny little thing in a tiny little home, and Harry died three days ago and today he watches Louis pack his things away. He understands, he supposes, but it hurts anyway. Louis makes small noises in the back of his throat now and again, his cheeks pink and his breath hitching in his throat, and Harry understands that, too. Louis loves him and Louis has not stopped crying since the moment he hit the pavement to find Harry gone, gone, gone. 

Louis wants to remove all traces of Harry from the home they shared. He wants to; Harry can see it in the agony marring his face. But he can’t. He won’t. Maybe he knows, deep down, that Harry has figured out how to stand at his side. Maybe he knows, above all things, that Harry would never leave him alone. Now and then he looks up, straight through Harry, and Harry raises one hand and he offers a wave that Louis never sees. Harry waves, offering his lovely boy a smile, and his boy can’t see him and it isn’t fair at all. 

Harry is a ghost and Louis picks up one of Harry’s T-shirts, smoothing the worn fabric in both of his small, trembling hands. And he presses it to his nose, breathing the smell of Harry in deep, and Harry reaches out for the boy he can’t touch no matter how hard he tries. 

He speaks to Louis when Louis sobs into his pillow at night. He speaks to Louis in the kitchen, Louis with his knees drawn to his chest as he collapses on the tile floor and lets the glass of ice water in his hand shatter at his feet. He speaks to Louis as he weeps, crying so hard he chokes and sputters and gasps for air, and he tells Louis all the things he knows that he should hear. 

“I’m here,” Harry tells Louis. “I’m here, baby. I’m not leaving now. Not ever. I didn’t feel any pain, my Lou, my love, I promise. And I’m going to wait for you for the rest of your life. I would never ever go on without you, my Lou,” he assures the boy who needs to hear it. “Not now. Not ever.”

Louis cannot hear him but the longer Harry speaks the farther apart the sobs that wrack Louis’s tiny, fragile body become. 

And Harry has been dead for five days and Louis gets a visit from his mum, who crushes her son to her chest and tells him over and over how damn sorry she is. And Louis quakes with tears, he quakes with the effort of trying to keep it hidden from her, and Harry reaches for the boy who will never reach back for him again. 

“That’s right, take good care of him,” Harry asks of Louis’s mum as she bustles around the kitchen to make Louis a cup of tea. “Take care of him for me,” he says even though he does not know much but he knows that she can’t hear him. 

The moment Louis’s mum drops a steaming mug of tea before Louis, Harry wants to cry. She filled up the wrong damn mug, giving Louis the one that belonged to Harry, the mug with the crack along the side, and Harry watches numbly as Louis begins to cry. When his mother fawns, when she drops into the chair at Louis’s side with worry in her eyes, Louis whimpers like a wounded animal and for the first time since the night he died Louis lets Harry’s name pass his lips.

“It’s Hazza’s,” he moans, and his mother is horrified, beside herself as she takes the mug from him and hides it away in the sink where he can’t see. 

“I’m sorry, baby,” she tells him, over and over and over, but the damage has been done. Louis is gone, gone, gone and he bows his head to the table and cries for so long that the late afternoon sky fades to black and fades to night. 

And Harry is sorry. He is sorry, he is sorry, but nothing can change the fact that he’s buried six feet underground. No matter how hard he tries he can’t touch a thing; he can’t touch Louis. He can’t touch anything. All he can do is stand by his Louis, his baby, his love, and wait for minutes to turn to hours to turn to days. And they do. They do.

***

Harry has been dead for thirty-seven days and for the first time Louis wakes up in the morning and does not reach across the bed in search of Harry. He seems to realize halfway through rolling out of bed, his eyebrows creasing together over his blue, blue eyes, and with timid fingers he splays his hand over Harry’s empty side of the bed. 

And quietly he begins to speak. “I miss you, Haz,” he says, and if Harry had a heart left in his hollow chest it would have been crying out in pain. Louis’s eyes roll up to the ceiling as if Harry was listening from far away, from Heaven, maybe, and he bites at his lip and speaks louder this time. “I fucking miss you, Haz,” he says. “It’s supposed to get better. It’s supposed to get easier. They tell me that every day. They all do. But it’s all bullshit, isn’t it? It never gets better. You’re gone and I’m here and it isn’t fucking fair that I’m all alone at twenty-fucking-eight. It isn’t fucking fair that you didn’t get to see twenty-seven and you never will. Why did you leave me, Haz? Why wasn’t the fact that I sat here waiting for you enough to keep you alive?”

His chest hitches and he throws himself back on his bed, his hands twisting up in the sheets that used to hold the two of them together like prisoners. 

“How could you fucking leave me like that?” Louis asks, and Harry wishes desperately that he could answer.

“I didn’t,” Harry wails anyway, his voice coming out a whisper Louis never hears no matter how loud he screams. “I didn’t, babe, I would never. I would never, ever, ever.” And he tries, he tries with all his might, but when he gets close enough to Louis, to the love of his life to see the tears shining on his perfect face he can’t quite manage to touch him. 

“I’m sorry,” Harry wails because he’s here, he’s right here, and Louis thinks Harry left him. Louis thinks Harry would do such a thing, leaving him all alone in the world, but Harry would never. Harry would never. 

“I was going to ask you to marry me,” Louis mumbles to the ceiling. “I was, I promise. Hazza, my Haz, I had the fucking ring picked out and I was too scared to fucking buy it. I’m sorry I was scared. I’m so fucking sorry. Did you die thinking I don’t love you with everything I have?”

“No, baby, no,” Harry tells him. Louis’s voice cracks, trembles and breaks, and tears like ice, tears like rain fall from his eyes and land light in his ears and in his hair as he cries. 

“I should have asked you,” Louis sobs to the ceiling. “I should have fucking asked you and now I can’t. I miss you, Hazza. I fucking miss you and I hope you miss me, too.”

“More than anything,” Harry tells him, because more than anything he misses the way it felt to touch Louis everywhere he could, Louis’s skin warm and his lips sweet. He misses life. He misses breathing. He misses kissing Louis and he misses making love to Louis in their bed, tangled together, and he misses the way Louis tastes. Harry touches his lips and he wonders if Louis still tastes the same. 

***

Harry has been dead for eighty-three days when Louis finds something he had overlooked. Louis finds a notebook Harry had stowed away in the back of their bedroom closet and he sinks to the floor with the worn leather book in his hands, his knees creaking as he sits. Harry watches as lovingly Louis pries open the book, running his fingers along the spine, and he watches as Louis dances his fingers along the words Harry had penned through all the years they were together. It was not a diary, not quite, but it was something damn close. In it Harry had put all the words he wanted to scream from the rooftops; he loved Louis and he loved Louis and he loved Louis more than anything. 

And Harry is not surprised when Louis bows his head and begins to cry. Harry is sorry but there is nothing he can do. Louis flips through the book with his blue, blue eyes wide, marveling at the love songs Harry had never showed him, marveling at the way Harry loved him. 

Harry loves him, he loves him, and for just a moment Louis looks up towards where Harry stands at his side and Harry pauses. Louis watches the empty space before him and Harry offers him a wave, his fingers dancing in the air, and Louis sees nothing. 

It’s just not fair, not at all. 

***

Harry died in the winter and in the fall Louis moves away from the home he built with Harry. Harry understands. He does not want to be without Louis as much as Louis can’t bear to be without him, and without a choice Harry follows him. He promised, after all, that he would follow Louis for the rest of his life. And Harry is not one to break promises, even now. He already broke Louis’s heart. He is not going to break anything ever again. Especially the boy who gave him the world. 

***

Harry has lost track of how many days it’s been since he left Louis all alone. It’s winter again and then it’s spring, Louis ignoring the anniversary of the day Harry died, and Harry is glad. Louis does not cry now, not anymore. Louis cracks a smile now and then, guffawing at Niall when he cracks jokes and beaming at Zayn through a haze of cigarette smoke and grinning at Liam when he visits solely to offer a hug and friendly words. And Harry is happy when Louis is, Louis lighting up the world with his smile, and Harry is glad that not once do any of his old friends mention Harry’s name. 

But now and again Louis’s eyes leave whoever he speaks to and he searches the empty spaces of the room, searching for Harry in the hole he left. And sometimes his eyes meet Harry’s and Harry waves and Harry smiles, but Louis looking away in the end is inevitable. He never sees Harry. Not even when Harry is sure, standing as still as he can as Louis focuses. Louis always looks away in the end.

And Harry is glad. He does not want Louis to dwell; he wants Louis to be happy. It hurts, the thought of Louis living and breathing and forgetting Harry day by day, but Harry knows something no one else knows. Louis sleeps with a tiny wallet sized picture under his pillow, a picture of Louis and Harry with their arms slung around each other as they beamed, a picture taken years ago when Harry was seventeen and he had just barely discovered the miracle that is Louis Tomlinson. 

Late at night when Louis takes the picture out and runs his fingers along Harry’s face Harry thinks he would give anything to be back there, smiling with his boy at his side. He has to settle for watching Louis sleep, snoring lightly like he always does, and the fact that he is near Louis has to be enough.

***

Louis is thirty and Harry should have been twenty-eight but here he is, stuck at twenty-six as always. He is stuck and he is sad but it’s Christmas and Louis is happy. Zayn and Liam and Niall are at Louis’s flat, smiling and passing around a bottle of champagne, and they celebrate Louis’s birthday and hand him wrapped boxes topped with bows. Niall wraps tinsel around Louis’s neck and tells him he loves him and Harry is glad because somebody is still there to remind Louis that he is so, so loved. 

Harry loves Louis even as laugh lines that are brand new pop out as he beams. 

Louis is growing older and Harry will never, ever leave him. 

Late, late at night long after everyone has left and Louis finishes the bottle of champagne all by himself, he lays in bed and speaks to Harry for the first time all year. 

“I can’t remember how your voice sounds, baby,” Louis tells him, tracing with a wandering hand the place Harry used to lay. “I woke up this morning with no idea what you sound like and no matter how many stupid fucking old videos I watch I can’t quite get it back. It’s not the same on tape, Hazza, and I wish I could hear your voice again.”

“I love you, my Lou,” Harry tells him, and Louis does not hear him as he frantically wipes tears from his eyes. 

“I’m still drowning, Haz,” Louis tells the white, white ceiling.

It’s white for snow, white for sorrow. 

“I’m still drowning in the loss of you,” Louis says. “When will it get better? You should be here, baby, you should fucking be here, and I hate that you’re not. Why aren’t you here?” And Louis is beautiful when he drinks, his lips rosy and his cheeks flushed, and Harry wonders idly if the man who killed him looked much the same. 

“I hate you for leaving me here,” Louis says, and Harry bends and Harry breaks.

“I’m right here, honey,” Harry tells him. By now he knows for sure; Louis will never hear him. But he tries, he tries, and Louis furiously rubs tears from his blue, blue eyes and shakes his head at himself. 

“I hate myself for still missing you,” he says. “I should be over you. You’ve been gone for so fucking long, Hazza, and I don’t know how I manage to stay alive without you.”

“I’m right here, sweetheart, I’m right here.” And Harry is so close to Louis, so close that if he were not a ghost Louis would have been able to lean in a touch and kiss him. 

“I hate you for leaving me,” Louis moans again, and Harry looks away as Louis’s lip quivers and he bends and he bends and he snaps and he breaks. “I fucking hate you, Harry, how could you leave me?”

“Happy Birthday, Lou,” Harry says instead of coming up with an answer. “I love you.”

And the ceiling is all Louis sees as he stares and it’s white, white, white.

White like blood cells, white like light. 

***

Louis is thirty-six and he is a new man. He lives in the same old flat but he does not live alone anymore. He has a roommate who becomes his lover who becomes his boyfriend and then his fiancé. And Harry is not angry; Harry is glad. He is so happy his heart could burst if it still beat in his barren chest. He wanted nothing but happiness for Louis, for his baby, for his heart, and if he has to stand in waiting, twenty-six for the rest of Louis’s life, then that is all right. He can do it for Louis; he can do anything for him.

Late at night when Louis’s new love is asleep Louis pads from the bedroom, tiptoeing as quietly as he can, and he pulls the old photograph of Harry and him from a hidden slot in a drawer in the kitchen and he unfolds it, laying it out on the counter and staring until tears mar his perfect face. 

He still misses Harry. There is still a hole in his heart. When he thinks no one can hear he cries in the middle of the night, the light on the microwave blinking the time, and he tells Harry how goddamn sorry he is that he’s trying his best to move on. 

“I love you, Harry,” Louis says. “I love you forever. Okay? Don’t think I don’t just because…” And he trails off and he looks towards the bedroom even though he must know nobody but Harry is listening. 

“Anyway,” he says, voice low. “I love you. I’m going to love you forever. Who the hell do you think you are, anyway, leaving me here all alone?”

“I’m right here, my Lou,” Harry reminds him, and as Louis heads back to bed Harry pretends that their hands touch when he tries to make them meet.

***

Louis is forty and he has a baby girl, a tiny little thing he and his husband adopted and raised into a precocious, perfect two year old. Harry thinks she can see him sometimes, when she concentrates her little eyes on him, and Harry waves and she opens and closes her tiny hands in the air to wave back at him and he is sure. 

“She always does that,” Louis says, scooping his daughter into his arms and looking around the room for whatever it is that his baby sees. “Why does she always do that?” 

“I don’t know,” his husband says, wrapping strong arms around Louis and kissing his cheek. “Are we haunted, you think?” And Louis freezes and Harry does, too, Louis looking at him for a long, long moment, but the moment breaks and Louis shakes his head.

“No,” he murmurs as if he does not believe it at all. “No, if I were haunted I would know about it by now.” 

And Harry is sorry that Louis’s eyes swim with tears because he has the feeling that finally Louis knows for sure. Harry is never, ever going to leave him alone.

***

Louis is fifty-seven and he has gray hair and his eyes crinkle up more and more every day and Harry loves him more and more every moment. Harry loves him for the graceful way he ages, all beauty and the same small boy he was when Harry had him for his own. He is a loving father and a loving husband and he smiles and he laughs and once in a while he catches sight of himself in the mirror and he lets out an audible sigh. And maybe he is sorry that he is old and Harry will always be twenty-six, but more likely than not he does not think of Harry anymore at all. He smiles and he laughs and when his boys come to visit with children of their own he smiles even wider and tells stories that no one believes from when he was young. 

Harry loves him for the easy way he speaks with children on his knees, waving his hands about and nearly poking eyes out as he spins tales. Harry loves him for the way he loves completely, crushing his daughter to his chest and kissing his husband for long moments each and every morning. And Harry is not sad, not for a moment, because Louis is loved and that is all Harry could ever ask for. 

And Harry is going to wait for Louis for the rest of Louis’s life. 

***

Louis is sixty-eight and he can hardly remember his own damn name half the time, his mind jumbled and his hands shaky. Harry is young and Louis is old and Harry is not sad, not now, because Louis is alive and Louis is bright even as he ages and ages along with the march of time. Louis has grandchildren and he has so much love in his life he looks as if he could drown in it, happy enough to burst at the seams. 

But on Harry’s birthday, the year he should have been sixty-six, Louis finds the old photograph of him and Harry in an old box of memories and his blue, blue eyes light up like they have not in years. He presses his thumbs into the worn out photo, Harry and Louis grinning as children, and he makes a soft noise in the back of his throat Harry never thought he would hear again. 

He misses Harry still, after all this time.

“I hope you’re happy, Hazza,” Louis breathes, his voice so soft Harry has to lean in close to hear it. “I hope you’re happy and I hope you’re safe, wherever you are.” He does something crazy, drawing the photo to his lips, and he kisses it before letting it slip through his fingers and land on the kitchen table. “I love you more and more every day,” he whispers, and it’s the last thing he says to Harry for a long, long time. 

***

Louis is eighty and he is tired, slow and old and forgetful, and Harry follows him around with an ache deep in his chest for his inability to catch Louis when he stumbles and falls. Louis lost his husband last year and he lives alone now, alone in a new house that seems far too big to Harry. But Louis smiles still, bright and alive, when the boys visit him and hug him close and tell him how much they love him. 

They miss Harry still, after all this time, and more than anything Harry wants to tell them he is sorry for leaving them. 

They are blue like sadness; they are blue like fear. But Harry is not afraid. Not now. Not ever.

“I hope I get to hear your voice again,” Louis tells the ceiling of his room, and Harry knows he speaks to him and him alone. “When I get to where I’m going. I wonder every day if Heaven is with you. I think it must be. Because I never stopped missing you, Harry. Not for a minute. Not for a fucking minute.” And Harry laughs because Louis is still the same boy Harry left behind, a boy who swears and laughs and crinkles up his eyes when he smiles. He is still the same boy. And Harry will wait for him until the end of time.

***

Louis is eighty-seven when he dies peacefully, going slow in his sleep. Louis is eighty-seven when he fades from the world, old and tired and spent and loved. 

But when Louis comes to Harry, bright and warm and alive, he is twenty-eight again, young and happy and small. 

“Harry,” he says, and for the first time in more years than Harry can count his best boy can see him. Louis looks right at him, the same boy Harry left behind, and for the first time in longer than Harry can remember he reaches out to feel something solid beneath his fingertips.

“You waited for me,” Louis breathes, and Harry nods because he can’t say anything at all. He touches Louis, he finally touches him, and Louis pulls him as tight as he can to his chest. “I never stopped loving you, Harry,” he breathes, and Harry tells him he knows, he knows, he knows.

Harry Styles does not know much but he has learned a thing or two about love watching Louis live a life so full to the brim with it, spilling over and overflowing. 

“I’m so sorry,” Harry says when he can finally say anything at all, and Louis hushes him and cradles his face in both hands. 

“Don’t be sorry,” Louis whispers. “I can see you now.” And he holds Harry tight and his touch is what Harry waited a lifetime for. Louis kisses him, his lips as sweet as Harry remembers, and Louis’s touch is all Harry needs to feel alive. 

“Are you ready to go?” Harry asks him when he draws away, his eyes so blue they could light up the sky. 

“You waited for me,” Louis breathes again instead of replying, breathless and warm and smiling. 

“I waited for you,” Harry agrees. 

“Thank you,” Louis says, and Harry nods. 

“Anything for you.” And they are together, Harry and the love of his life, his baby, his Lou, and all the years of tears and pain and sorrow begin to fall away. 

Louis lived a life well lived and as Harry takes Louis by the hand Louis beams so bright Harry nearly has to look away. 

“Ready to go?” Harry asks again, and this time Louis nods. 

They are together, Harry and the boy he waited a lifetime for, and as they walk together into the white light, into the end, Harry thanks his lucky stars he fell in love with a boy who would never stop loving him. 

Louis’s love is white like a smile, white like the stars.

**Author's Note:**

> I'm sorry. This is sad.
> 
> I happily accept hate mail and love notes on my tumblr @ ourl0veisgod.
> 
> Thank you for reading.


End file.
